Winter Break. Part I - Days 1 and 2: The Longest Vacation Ever... Begins.
Here we go: Winter Break 2026. And of course, as always, I have to start with the pre-show.
The week before the trip, Hallie came down with a very bad cold, which turned out to be RSV. She stayed home from school for two and a half days, and I was a nervous wreck—mostly worrying about whether Madeleine would get it too. But by Shabbos, Hallie was doing much better. Nobody else had gotten sick, and I thought, okay, great—this was our illness. We survived it. Now we can get ready for vacation and everything will be fine.
How wrong I was.
On Shabbos, we went to shul, and there was a large kiddush for a bar mitzvah. I actually met someone there who was going to be on the same cruise as us, and we joked that this could be a super-spreader event. Sunday was totally normal, but by Sunday night, Tzvi was nauseous and up all night, and by Monday morning, let’s just say things were not looking pretty out of either end.
It became pretty clear that some sort of stomach bug was making its way through everyone who had been at that kiddush. We don’t know exactly what it was, but it was bad. Really bad. You can only imagine how I was feeling. There was the obvious panic: who else was going to get it? What if Tzvi was just going to be vomiting and having diarrhea forever? It was really, really awful. But by some miracle, nobody else got sick, and by Wednesday, Tzvi was feeling pretty decent, and off we were.
Our flight was at 5:30PM, so I picked up the kids early from school and we headed to the airport. Check-in was super easy, and the airport was practically empty. I’m telling you—Wednesday at 5:30 is the perfect time to fly. Our flight even pushed back a minute early, we were in the air 11 minutes later, and while the flight was pretty bumpy, overall it was very good.
We landed at Orlando Airport, our luggage came out first, and our transportation was right by baggage claim waiting for us. The ride to Disney was a quick half hour, and we pulled up to Disney’s Bay Lake Tower, a Disney Vacation Club property at the Contemporary Resort.
For this trip, we opted to “buy” DVC points from a woman who sells them, which allowed us to stay in a two-bedroom villa at the Contemporary. Thanks Jay from Toddys for the connection – the best bagels and best Disney tips. We had never done Disney this way before and didn’t know what to expect, but it ended up being really fantastic. It was kind of like blending our stays at Vistana (my parents’ time share) with a Deluxe Disney resort. We got a two bedroom, three bathroom suite with a living room, kitchen and dining table, and laundry! The room was really nice and very spacious. We booked a lake view because a park view is outrageously expensive, except we ended up with a corner room – or as close to a corner as you can get in a round building. When we opened the terrace doors we looked straight out at the lake, but when we turned our heads to the left we had a full view of Magic Kingdom. You can see the castle, Space Mountain, Tron. You can even hear the people screaming on Tron. It’s really, really cool.
We got settled in quickly, unpacked a bit, and then of course the kids were hungry even thought it was 10PM. So Tzvi and I walked to the main Contemporary lobby – it’s a one minute walk across a bridge – where there was a quick service restaurant open.
We ordered pizzas and fries for the kids and then sat down to wait for our food. And then we waited, and waited, and waited. Eventually Tzvi went over to see what was going on and it turned out they had “lost” the ticket. I’m not really sure how that happens, but they were very apologetic and gave us the meals for free.
The kids enjoyed the pizza, and finally it was time for bed. Overall, despite everything, it was a great travel day and start to the trip.
Day 2 – Thursday: Hollywood Studios
Thursday morning, we woke up, got ready, and left the hotel in an Uber to head over to Disney’s Riviera Resort.
It’s a resort that’s only a few years old, but we’d never been there. On the top floor is a restaurant called Topolino’s Terrace, which has a character breakfast featuring Minnie, Mickey, Donald, and Daisy. We’d never done it, so I thought this was a good time to try it. Our reservation was at 10:00 a.m., which made for a nice, slow start to the day. It’s an à la carte meal: they bring out a basket of pastries with jam, Nutella, and butter, and then you can choose an entrée. We were nervous about it not being a buffet, but this was actually way more food than anyone needs. Also, we are on the Disney Dining Plan because we were able to get both kids free. With the dining plan, you’re even entitled to an extra drink with each meal (even at breakfast), so technically we could have ordered breakfast cocktails, but nobody needed that, so we got lattes instead. The character interactions were also really sweet. Daisy even sat down and started fake-playing Old Maid with Madeleine, which was adorable. Overall, it was just a very nice breakfast and one I would highly recommend.
From there, we took the Skyliner—Disney’s aerial gondola system—over to Hollywood Studios. I had never been on the Skyliner before, and it was really cool, by which I mean it was cold and there was no heat. I guess it was better than the opposite – I can imagine it’s awful in those things in August. I should mention Florida is going through a cold spell – the high for the day was 62, but it was just dreary and the real feel was definitely lower. We spent the day walking around shivering in our coats.
We decided we would do Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom for this trip because last year we did EPCOT and Magic Kingdom, and we wanted a change. We had the Premier Pass, which meant we could go on basically all the rides whenever we wanted without booking specific Lightning Lane times, which was fantastic.
We started in Toy Story Land and did Midway Mania, Slinky Dog Dash, and the Alien ride. Madeleine was scared of Slinky Dog and did not love it, but overall we had a good time. There was an area where they were displaying three outfits from The Era’s Tour, so that was very cool to see. From there, we made our way to Tower of Terror and Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster. We did a rider switch for Tower of Terror—Hallie did it and loved it. Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster was just me, Hallie, and Shir. It’s funny because they’re in the process of switching Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster over from Aerosmith to the Muppets. It hasn’t closed yet, but all the Aerosmith branding and the pre-show are gone, and they even changed the songs. They’re still Aerosmith songs, just not the ones they used to use. We’ll see how that ride ends up changing.
For lunch, the kids had pizza, and we had Asian noodles in a waffle bowl, which was… interesting. After that, we walked over to Star Wars land. Madeleine didn’t do Rise of the Resistance, but she did do Millennium Falcon. I think she was scared, but she handled it like a champ. We also saw a couple of shows – the Disney Villains show, which was cute, and the Little Mermaid show. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to the Frozen show—there just wasn’t enough time.
For dinner, we went to Woody’s Rodeo Roundup, which we’ve eaten at several years ago and love. They do a really great vegetarian spread. I honestly don’t remember everything we ate, but it was all BBQ and a lot of food. There’s so much sauce you can barely tell its vegetarian. It was great. The kids also love that every 20 minutes or so, a toy comes on the loudspeaker and announces that Andy is coming, at which point all of the servers freeze until they say the coast is clear. It’s a very cute thing.
After dinner, we debated staying for Fantasmic at 9:30, but it was just too cold. By the time we got out of dinner it was around 34 degrees. We were barely able to walk the length of the main street to get out of the park, so there was really no way we were standing outside to watch a fireworks show.
We grabbed an Uber back to the hotel. Our driver was from Venezuela, and when we asked him how he felt about things, he said, “I am happy Maduro is in Brooklyn.”. When we got back to the hotel we were actually able to catch some of the Magic Kingdom fireworks from our balcony, so that was nice.
All in all, it was a good day.
England. Day 8. Giddy up!
Today we got up early and went to breakfast. Same as yesterday—still very delicious. We had to move quickly because we needed to be at our horseback riding by 10:00 AM.
Outside the hotel, a little golf cart took us a couple of minutes down the property to the stables. They must have at least ten horses there. We checked in, got fitted with riding gear—boots, vests, helmets. Everyone looked so cute in the gear. Then we met our horses. Tzvi’s horse was Nolton, a huge black and white horse. Mine was Elton, Madeleine’s was Scooby Doo, and Hallie’s was Blue. Everyone mounted up, and each of us was paired with a guide that was basically walking the horse, so we weren’t riding alone. They led us out of the stables and around the property.
It was so much fun. The girls did great and loved it. I loved it. We all did. A few of the horses stopped to poop along the way, which was pretty gross, but still—we had such a nice time. Afterwards, the girls said they wanted to keep horseback riding when we got home, though there isn’t really anywhere nearby that does it.
After riding, we lingered at the stables for a bit, looked at some of the other horses, then took the golf cart back to the hotel. We wandered around the property for a while. We stopped at the orchard, which was small and had some pear and apple trees. We ran into the pastry chef who was picking apples for some desserts. We tried the apples, which were pretty good. We also tried the pears, which were not. Then we passed the tennis courts and even played for a minute before moving on. Further along, we reached fields and then found beehives where the hotel harvests their own honey. Hallie was nervous about getting stung.
From there we made our way to the playground, where the girls ran around for a bit before heading off to the kids’ club. I stayed swinging for a little while, then met them at the kids’ club, where they were doing some coloring. The club closed at 12:30, so we walked back to the hotel for lunch.
Lunch today was at the spa restaurant, which was Asian-themed. Tzvi, Madeleine and Shir all had noodles with tofu, and Hallie and I had teriyaki salmon. The salmon came with rice and veggies and was honestly one of the best things I ate the entire trip. I could have eaten three bowls of it—it was that good. After lunch we wanted to go to the gelato shop, but it was raining so they didn’t open it today. That was unfortunate. Instead we sat at the bar and the girls had ice cream.
After that the girls went back to the kids’ club with Shir and Tzvi and I went to the pool. We swam alone a bit, and then Tzvi had a work call, so I swam laps. Later, the girls came to the pool and we all swam together until about 5:45, when it was time to head up, pack, and change for dinner.
When we checked in earlier in the week, the girls had gotten these little “kid passports” to collect stamps from different spots on property, but we lost those and forgot to get the stamps. So before lunch, the girls got new passports and then ran around getting all of the stamps. All of the staff were so nice helping them get their stamps and fill out their little books. It was so cute. Before dinner we made a stop in the lobby where they presented their passports and got to pick from a toy chest. Hallie got a plush Dobby (from Harry Potter), and Madeleine got a little ball that had a unicorn and slime in it.
Dinner tonight was at La Terazza, the hotel’s pizza place, right next to the main restaurant. They had a nice big wood-fired pizza oven. We started by ordering the crudite and humus from the kids menu, though that was more for us, and Tzvi had an eggplant parmesan appetizer that he shared with Shir. The kids’ pizzas came shaped like Mickey Mouse, which was adorable. The adult pizzas were stunning and also quite delicious. My pizza was cheeseless, with tomato sauce, zuchini, beetroot mayo, crispy onions and basil. It was so delicious I want to try recreating it at home. Tzvi and Shir also shared two pizzas. One with a “burnt multigrain” crust, tomato sauce, cheese, eggplant, confit tomatoes, ricotta and basil, and a second with tomato sauce, mozzarella, mushrooms, artichokes and olives. We also shared a Nutella pizza for dessert, because of course we couldn’t skip that. Tzvi had tiramisu and we all shared the estate honey gelato too.
I forgot to mention, every meal we’ve had at this hotel – afternoon tea, dinners – they’ve brought out candles with little chocolates or candies for Tzvi’s birthday, I guess because I told them at check in we were celebrating Tzvi’s birthday (which is in two weeks). Nice touch.
After dinner we went back to the room, packed more, and eventually got the girls to bed. Then Tzvi and I went down to the hotel bar for a drink. It was mostly empty, but after coming back from the bathroom Tzvi sits down and tells me, “Go to the bathroom and walk by that guy’s table. I’m pretty sure that’s Jeffrey Wright from The Hunger Games.” At first I wasn’t sure, but then on the way back from the bathroom we practically bumped into each other. I said, “You look very familiar.” He smiled and said, “Man of your dreams, maybe.” Then we sat down and I saw he posted pictures of sheep outside the hotel two hours ago. Definitely him.
Anyway, we enjoyed a lovely last drink at the bar, which was almost more like being in a living room. We sat on a big couch and enjoyed really delicious cocktails. I had an appley thing, and Tzvi had a drink that was like a rum and scotch old fashioned with banana syrup. Sounded gross to me but he loved it.
And with that, we wrapped up our last night in Hampshire.
Friday
Today we got up bright and early because our car to pick us up was coming at 8:30. Well, it was definitely early, but not so bright. It was a gloomy day outside, definitely the worst weather of the trip, which I thought was perfect for a departure day. I had originally booked the car for 8am, but Ian told me I could push it. There was another guy who wanted me to move it to 7am because of “traffic.” He didn’t know who he was dealing with. They also offered to pack us up a breakfast, but again, they didn’t know who they were dealing with. So, we got up a little earlier in order to make it to our last buffet breakfast. We ate all the things and then headed out.
As we pulled away from the hotel, a few of the staff members stood outside and waved us off. Tzvi said it felt like when people would come and go on Downton Abbey. I can’t say enough good things about this hotel, except for the moths. I’d love to go back one day.
The ride was about an hour. Once we made it to Heathrow we had to cross like three streets to get from the car to the actual terminal entrance, but at least the luggage carts are free. We checked in and got through security without issue. The terminal itself is very nice with a lot of high end stores. We walked around a bit and bought some snacks.
Next to our gate was a kids play area which the kids went to for about five minutes. At that point I realized we actually had no food for the kids for the flight so I went on a quest to find plain bread. For some reason I couldn’t get a plain roll at any of the food places. So, where did I end up but the Louis Vuitton café. They had bread and butter on their menu so I just asked if I could have the bread. They told me that generally they do not let people take away food, but they would make an exception for me. Apparently this was because they know people litter and they don’t want LV wrapping on the floor. It took a while to get the bread (because they were actually baking it), during which time Tzvi was standing at the gate waiting to get on the plane and texting and calling me, freaking out that he couldn’t go as soon as they started boarding. Glad I got to miss that.
Once I got the bread I headed back to the gate where boarding had already started. We got on the plain without issue. Once we sat we realized that behind us were four kids probably ages 6-16. Problem was their parents were in the back of the plane! I’m telling you, the whole flight these kids were alone and the teenagers were fine but the 6 year old kept kicking our seats! When we went to the bathroom we saw the parents each laid out across their own rows sleeping. I wish I were kidding. Also worth noting that a row behind the kids was this middle aged guy who was just playing reels out loud! I don’t understand. Like, do people just think everyone wants to hear their videos?
On this flight they actually had our kosher meals, but they were cold and inedible felafel pitas. Tzvi got the regular food, which was a weird croissant thing that wasn’t much better. They did give out good ice cream though, and with about an hour left in the flight they came through with mini margherita pizzas, which actually weren’t the worst thing I’ve eaten.
Needless to say the flight was LONG. It was 8 hours, which felt significantly longer than the 6.5 hours to get to England. I also don’t understand why it was 1.5 hours longer on the way home. I get the winds go the wrong way, but when you go to Israel the flight home is like an hour longer, and that’s almost double the distance. Anyway, did I mention it was long? The kids did well though. 8 hours of iPads.
We landed, went smoothly through passport, got our bags (probably in record time for JFK), and went home, with three hours to spare until Shabbos. Successful trip.
England. Day 7. Castle On the Hill.
And now for the next part of our trip!
The next leg of our vacation is at the Four Seasons Hampshire. The hotel is on Dogmersfield Estate. If you’ve ever seen Downton Abbey, it’s basically like that. The actual hotel is a restored 18th century manor house, but the grounds are pretty huge. Saying its gorgeous would be an understatement. I don’t think my descriptions would do it justice. You’ll have to just look at the photos, but even those won’t do it justice.
As a reminder, Mary Helen suggested the Four Seasons Hampshire when we were initially trying to figure out what to do, and as soon as I looked at the pictures on the website I said we had to go there. The hotel of my dreams and enough to build a whole trip around.
We checked in for our three night stay and started heading to our room. As we were unloading, we saw two moths that Tzvi and the Bellman killed. It was pretty disgusting. But then it got worse. I think after the bellman left we killed another 2. I thought maybe when they were cleaning they left the window open.
Anyway, we left for our dinner that was about a 5 minute drive from the hotel at The Exchequer, a casual English pub. It was a real country pub. They had games, so we played Jenga and cards. Dinner was delicious. We had bread, corn ribs, Korean cauliflower and pea soup. I had a veggie burger and Tzvi had fish and chips. Hallie got a tomato soup she loved. For dessert we had sticky toffee pudding and a rhubarb crumble. The only issue was that it took SO long. I guess people just don’t care to move here. Certainly no hustle and bustle here. We ordered a cab back, but it also took like 15 minutes to come.
Finally, we got back to the room, changed the girls for bed, and that’s when we started to see more bugs. I think we saw 3 or 4 more moths. While all of this is happening, we were also dealing with getting the girls to sleep, which was a whole new issue since they now had to share a bed. Hallie was trying to go to sleep but Madeleine wouldn’t stop hugging her, which Hallie didn’t want. It was a mess.
(Tzvi hunting moths with his shoe)
I went to the front desk just to let them know what was happening with the bugs. I came back to the room and THEN there was another bug. So then I went back to the front desk just to say what do I do. The woman was very apologetic but we couldn’t move rooms because there were no other connecting rooms available, and anyway it was like 11:30 at night and Madeleine had finally gone to sleep so were we really going to wake her up. They sent a housekeeping man with me with a light to check everything. He didn’t find anything. It was just so gross and eerie and unpleasant. Between the moths and the girls not going to sleep, it was a very tense first night.
Wednesday
We woke up around nine, got dressed, and headed down to breakfast. Thankfully, no more moth sightings in the room. Breakfast here is a buffet but also has a full menu, and it’s honestly overwhelming in the best way. They have everything — pastries, muffins, smoked salmon, waffles, pancakes, salads, homemade jams, even vegan sausage. The girls were thrilled to see Nutella. Madeleine was also excited to find pickles (well, gherkins, but same thing to her).
After breakfast, we headed out because Tzvi had an 11 a.m. clay pigeon shooting lesson. We all wore the giant ear protectors and watched him at the start. He actually hit his first shot, which was exciting, then I left with the kids and Shir to explore. [Tzvi: It was fun. We moved around the field to five different positions, each with a launcher that launched the disks in a different way. There was even one that rolled the disk across the field like a bunny. My instructor, Sam, was probably in his late 20s and said he had lived his whole life in a nearby village. He and his grandfather run the shooting at the hotel, so it’s a family business. After Steph left, Sam said, “you must have your hands full with three girls.” Shir is 21. Do I really look that old?]
We walked around the hotel grounds and found two playgrounds — one smaller for little kids, one bigger — and eventually discovered the kids’ club. It was adorable and is basically in this cute little cottage. I left Shir and Madeleine there to paint while I ran with Hallie back to the room to drop off some things.
By noon, it was time for archery. Hallie and I did the lesson together, and it was both fun and slightly painful. We wore armbands, but the bowstring still managed to leave a few marks. The instructor was great, and Hallie really loved it — I think she felt very Katniss Everdeen.
We walked back through the fields. Everything is so beautiful and we just wanted to take photos everywhere. Looking back, maybe we should’ve just taken a mental picture.
Afterward, we rejoined Shir and Madeleine, and then stopped at reception. They’d been checking in via the app about the whole bug fiasco, so I met with the manager I’d been speaking to. His name was Ian, he was super tall, and he said he went to college in Hawaii where he played volleyball. He was kind and apologetic. I told him we’ve been ok, but the whole moth situation had been a little traumatizing. He was very nice about it.
At 1:30, we went to afternoon tea in the Drawing Room. It wasn’t as artistic as the Rosewood’s tea, but still beautiful and absolutely delicious. They’d even customized everything to be pescatarian and vegetarian, swapping out the pastries with gelatin for non-gelatin pastries. The scones were perfection — clotted cream, jam, lemon curd — and the teas were amazing. I tried a 20th anniversary blend and then a Four Seasons exclusive “digestion” tea, which is supposed to help with digestion. It hasn’t yet, but I’m hopeful. The girls devoured pastries, and it was just a really nice experience. The room was so quiet, but the girls were super well behaved. Even I was impressed. They were mostly entertained by the gold napkin rings. At one point Madeleine asked for a new napkin, but the waiter saw through it and ended up brining her a half dozen more napkin rings instead, which made her very happy. As we were leaving, Ian stopped me again and said they were comping the entire tea “for our troubles.” That was nearly $500 off the bill. So that was very nice of him.
We then spent the afternoon at the pool. There are two indoor pools. One is an adults’ pool, with lap lanes, but you can also swim outside by going through a little door and then there’s like a hot tub (except it’s not hotter than the rest of the pool) with jets and water features. There’s also a kids’ pool and splash zone with a slide. It’s a really fantastic kids pool – tons of water features and just really nice. Also, both the water and the pool building are really warm, so it was really comfortable to just get in and out of the water. We started at the kids pool, then moved over when family time opened for the big pool at 4pm. The girls loved both. Just a really lovely afternoon at the pool.
By 5:45 we were back in the room, showered, dressed, and then went downstairs for dinner at Wild Carrot — the same restaurant as breakfast.
Dinner here, like the night before, took forever. I keep telling myself it’s just that we’re living life more slowly out in the country, but when you see three families come and go while you’re still waiting for appetizers, you start to wonder if it’s just us. Still, the food was very good: I had a chilled pea soup that was excellent, and the salmon was decent. Tzvi had an onion tart, and a blackened salmon with rice and yogurt sauce that he said was delicious.
Once the mains were done Tzvi took the girls outside to run around in the field while we waited for desserts. The desserts were fantastic, and at both tea and dinner they brought out a little candle for Tzvi’s upcoming birthday, which was sweet. I think they could sense we were annoyed with the length of time so the head chef came over to ask how everything was. Then the pastry chef came out to say hello. Oh, we also spotted an Israeli family at dinner. We didn’t speak to them, but they really are everywhere.
After dinner came the nightly bedtime battle. Madeleine insists on hugging Hallie to fall asleep. Hallie wants peace. Cue 60 minutes of bickering, all the while Tzvi is on a work call. If Hallie would just tolerate five minutes of cuddling, Madeleine would be out like a light — but of course, it’s “not fair” to ask her. And she’s right, but still, it would save us all a lot of misery.
On the bug front: no more moths! At one point, Tzvi thought he killed a mosquito, but it turned out to just be a piece of fuzz. Tzvi is very good at killing fuzz. There are bugs around the property — you’ll see them in hallways or outside — but that’s just life in the country. The moth episode was traumatizing, but at least that seems to be behind us.
England. Day 6. I Solemnly Swear We Are Up to No Good.
We woke up Tuesday morning and headed to our final breakfast in the Holborne Dining Room. It was good as usual.
Then Tzvi took the girls to the Waterstones down the block because he regretted not buying the tote bag when we had gone to the flagship store. I checked out of the hotel and made sure everything was set because today the plan was to go to the Warner Brothers Studio in Leavesden for the Harry Potter studio tour! It was a little complicated because we needed to get to Harry Potter and then our next hotel, but also needed to deal with our luggage and didn’t want to have to pay for a driver to sit for four hours while we were in Harry Potter. So we came up with a plan: We would take the train with Inbar to Harry Potter (yes, very adventurous of us), Shir would stay back today and hang with her family (she is not a Harry Potter fan), and then she would come back to the hotel and take the taxi with our luggage and pick us up at Harry Potter. I spoke to the concierge and they said we were good to go!
Our train was 11:39 and we planned to leave the hotel around 11 (we needed to take a cab to the train station). Problem was that Tzvi was still in the bookstore at 11. When he finally got back and we asked for a cab, we had to wait over ten minutes! This whole trip we’ve never had to wait more than 2 minutes and now when we actually needed to be somewhere we had to wait. Anyway, we got in the cab, sat in a lot of traffic, and arrived at the station at 11:35. Inbar was waiting for us outside the station and we all ran to the train. We made it with a minute to spare, and those trains leave on time. At 11:38 the doors were already beeping for an 11:39 departure.
The ride was about 25 minutes. From there we went outside in the rain and transferred to the free WB Studio bus, which was another half hour or so. So, it was a shlep, but we saved some money we could spend on souvenirs! [Tzvi: it wasn’t “some” money – it was over 100 pounds.] I think we were the last ones on the bus and got the very last row. I’m sure I don’t have to say it, but it was hot on the bus. Tzvi and Inbar felt like this was the perfect time to pull out the leftover cheese from Borough Market, cos you know, stale, stuffy air and cheese always go great together.
As you walk to the building you walk through large wands of the main characters. Then you pass statues of the Wizard Chess pieces from the first movie (like the actual pieces used in the film). It was very cool. The girls were crapping out a bit, which I had been nervous about, but we all just needed to reset and each lunch.
We had about an hour until we could enter the tour, so we had lunch in the food hall. The kids had pizza, Tzvi had a veggie burger and I had a tuna sandwich. We also got a vegan pie that came with mashed potatoes and gravy and was delicious. I’m really loving the vegan pies this trip. 10/10 lunch.
At 1:45 we got on line and started our tour! It was a great experience. We spent a solid three hours just on the tour and that was with barely reading things. Basically you walk through these giant buildings, which might have actually been soundstages, and are just filled with original sets and props. We walked through the Great Hall, Gringotts bank, saw Voldemort’s grave, lots of costumes, and some smaller props like the sorcerer’s stone, the time turner and the golden snitch used in the last movie. Hallie was particularly excited about the mirror of Erised because she had just watched the first movie. It was also really cool to see how they used forced perspective for certain things. For example, they had the hallway from the leaky cauldron from the third movie. The actual hallway is really short, but it gets smaller toward the back, which creates the illusion that it’s actually a long hallway.
At the halfway mark on the tour you get to walk through the real Hogwarts Express, and then there’s an outdoor courtyard where they have the house on Privet Drive, the Knight Bus and some other bigger outdoor props. They also sell food and butterbeer. We got two types of butterbeer, neither of which were good.
There were some guides scattered around giving tours so we could overhear things at different points. One note I overheard was about Voldemort’s costume and how he had seven shades of green costumes in the movies, and as each horcrux was destroyed he would wear a lighter shade of green.
We did our shopping in the gift shop. Both girls got Hermione wands, but there wasn’t that much else we wanted to buy and I think you can buy all the same stuff at the Harry Potter store in Chelsea, or the Harry Potter store at the Orlando airport. Tzvi picked out a pen, which he put on the stroller and then walked off to take a work call. As we were walking out Tzvi realized I never paid for the pen, so I had to go back and pay before I was designated as a shoplifter. Then Inbar, the girls and I went to get a milkshake and ice cream at the café. You had the option to order a Hapee Birthday Harry cake, but you needed to order at least 72 hours in advance. I only called 48 hours in advance, so they couldn’t make it. I don’t think Tzvi will forgive me. [Tzvi: it just made the tour more immersive, as now I know how Harry Potter felt on every birthday he spent with the Dursleys.]
During the tour I had been in touch with Shir, who told me that the car with the luggage left without her. Thankfully it was only about 10 minutes out so it quickly turned around and got her. Around 5 she arrived at Harry Potter so we headed out. We said our goodbyes to Inbar, who would not be joining us for the next leg. That was sad.
Then we were off to the countryside!
England. Days 4 and 5. We Can Go the Distance.
Sunday morning we got up—not bright and early, thankfully.
We had stayed up late the night before finishing season three of The White Lotus. It was just such a painful season, I’m so glad it’s over, and honestly, I’m glad everyone who died, died.
We got up slowly and went to breakfast, which we didn’t reach until about 10:45.
After a leisurely breakfast, we took a cab to the London Eye. Fourteen years ago, Tzvi and I came to London and did the Eye, and now we were doing it again. We got lucky this time: it was sunny, and we could see all of London. Everyone really enjoyed it—it was fun—but the kids got a little cranky as we came off. Of course we paid the extra 5 pounds for the mini binoculars, so that occupied the kids, until they started fighting over them.
Once we were back on the ground we met Inbar and tried to take some nice pictures in front of Big Ben. I think we got a couple, but had to bribe the girls in the process.
Next, we walked to the Uber Boat, basically a boat taxi on the River Thames. The boat was actually very nice (nicer than most Uber X you get in NYC) except, like everything else in London, there was no air conditioning (or air con as they call it, which makes it sound like a negative thing, which is maybe why they don’t have it). We rode it to the London Bridge stop, though we didn’t go to the bridge itself.
Instead, we walked to Borough Market, a famous food market, and sampled a ton of things. First, we tried a vegan pie—my favorite dish of the day—an Indian-style curry with chickpeas. Delicious. We also got a huge German pretzel and a bagel with cream cheese for Hallie (she’s such an adventurous eater!). Tzvi sampled cheese at a cheese stand, and then was like, ‘this is good, but what am I going to do, walk around with a big block of cheese?’ Well, everyone (including the man trying to sell him cheese) thought that was an excellent idea. He actually ended up buying three blocks of cheese, which everyone other than me and Hallie enjoyed. They also got a sourdough baguette that they could stick their cheese on. Of course we also got the famous chocolate-covered strawberries. Very good, though probably no better than other chocolate strawberries you could get elsewhere. We probably should’ve stopped there, but we walked further into the market and got an apple crumble from Humble Crumble topped with vanilla whipped cream—it had a huge line, but was worth it. While I waited on line the rest of the group found an Israeli stand and got drinks: a Spring mango drink, water, and an iced café that was actually passable for an Israeli slushy iced coffee. Somehow, we spent a lot of time at the market. We’d considered the Tower of London for the afternoon, but we didn’t leave the market until around 3:45, so there was no time.
Instead, we decided it was the perfect moment for a double-decker bus ride, which the girls had been excited about. We rode the bus to a stop near the Twinings Tea store. It was fun, but also no air conditioning. At Twinings we picked up some tea and then walked back to the hotel.
As soon as we walked in the hotel, we had a series of realizations all within the span of a few seconds. The first thing we realized was that there was music blasting in the lobby, which was unusual because the lobby has generally been quiet. Then we realized it wasn’t coming from the lobby, it was coming from the event space downstairs. And then we realized what the music was. Im Eshkacheich. It was the most bizarre thing walking into our hotel and hearing Hebrew music blaring, but we quickly realized there was a Jewish wedding taking place. We couldn’t see much at first, but could hear them break the glass, everyone sang, and servers walked around with hors d’oeuvres. After that the lobby suddenly filled up with men in kippas.
We went up to the room to drop our stuff and change, and then headed out to dinner. As we were waiting for the taxi the wedding party was taking pictures in the courtyard. They were still passing around hors devours and even offered them to us. It was meat and had to be kosher so we almost said yes. Inbar remarked she’d never seen so many Jews in one place in London. It was really cute and very fun to witness.
Once in the cab we headed to Camden Market. No, we weren’t exploring another food market. We had planned to go to the kosher restaurant in Camden Market for dinner, and found that there is an arcade called Babylon Park, so we figured we’d spend some time there before dinner. What we didn’t realize until later in the night is that Babylon Park is actually owned by an Israeli company and there are a dozen of them across Israel, including one in Tel Aviv that we went to several years ago. It was an indoor arcade with a couple of small rides. The kids loved it: an indoor roller coaster that we rode multiple times, bumper cars, a tiny Ferris wheel that Madeleine rode solo (like she was the only person on the whole thing), air hockey, and a few other things. It was fun and definitely worth it.
After the arcade, we walked to dinner at Mazal, a kosher Israeli restaurant in Camden Market. We ordered everything: schnitzel, cauliflower, chicken, pita, shawarma, humus, the “spicy plate”, and more. It was very good.
After dinner, Inbar went home, and we took a cab back. Shir also left to visit her parents, who had just flown in.
A good day overall.
Monday
Monday morning, we woke up bright and early.
We had to be at the Natural History Museum by 10:00 a.m. for our special David Attenborough exhibit. The four of us (Shir went off to spend the day with her parents and sister) arrived at the museum and found a massive line, which thankfully we didn’t need to wait on as we checked in and were led directly into the museum. I’m not exactly sure how we found this exhibit [Tzvi: it’s in every ‘Here’s what to do in London this summer’ Instragram reel], but basically, it was a fully immersive screen exhibit about the history of the universe. You’re in a big room and all four walls are screens. It starts from space and the big bang and goes all the way to the present day, focusing on the Earth and the planet. At times it felt like the whole room was moving (it wasn’t). The exhibit emphasized the importance of taking care of our planet, though I couldn’t help thinking that disasters will always happen and Earth will eventually reset itself and kill off all of humanity in the process. The message, I guess, is that we should do our best until that happens. Yeah, an uplifting start to the day.
I forgot to mention that the kids were so tired because they’d stayed up late. Madeleine woke up at 5:00 a.m. and then woke Hallie, so neither of them got much extra sleep. As the exhibit started, Madeleine fell asleep and basically slept through the entire morning.
After the 45–50 minute movie portion, we walked around the museum a bit. We saw dinosaur skeletons and skeletons of prehistoric men. Hallie was, as usual, enamored with the naked skeletons—it was pretty funny. Hallie made one of those pressed pennies, but she lost it in the exhibit. Don’t even ask. She had stuck it against the side of a glass box, and it fell into a tiny crevice. She was so upset, and Tzvi went on and on about how she doesn’t understand the value of things, that it was almost her full week’s allowance (the penny was 2 pounds, which is like $2.70), and that she really needed to learn to care about stuff. He was lecturing her for, like, 20 minutes. No surprise, before we left, he made her a new penny. Feel free to message us for parenting tips.
After the museum, we walked about 10 minutes to a restaurant called Mayfair Chippy. Madeleine was still sleeping at this point, so I sat in the front with her for a few extra minutes while we waited for Inbar to join us. Lunch was way better than I expected [Tzvi: for the record, I expected it to be great]. Tzvi, Hallie and Inbar got fish and chips. Madeleine and I got a fried tofu dish that was meant to mimic fried fish, and it was surprisingly good—Madeleine even ate it. The fish and chips also came with mushy peas and some kind of curry. Really enjoyable lunch.
From there we walked to Harrods, which was close by. I picked up chocolate-covered dates from a company based in (I think) Qatar. One was white chocolate mango and the other was milk chocolate raspberry. Delicious, though I did feel a little bad about possibly indirectly funding H*m*s. Though I guess that pales in comparison to going to college in the United States nowadays. We walked around Harrods, including the gift shop. I did not buy a Harrods bag like I did 14 years ago, but I did get some dishtowels.
After Harrods, we took a cab to Buckingham Palace. We couldn’t go to England and not see it, and the girls were excited, though tired—it was the hottest day so far. At this point, Tzvi had to be on a work call, so he spent the end of the Harrods visit, the Buckingham palace visit and the next half hour walking around on a zoom call (no video). We left the palace area and walked a few blocks to some souvenir shops, including a candy shop where the girls picked out candy, and I got them ice cream. I hadn’t noticed that when we walked away from Buckingham Palace Tzvi was still standing there talking on his call; he said he couldn’t follow because it was windy and he was speaking. We ended up several blocks away by the time anyone realized, so I sent him my location and he spent fifteen minutes wandering around trying to find us.
Tzvi finished his call and then we split up. I walked with Inbar about 15 minutes to find Poilâne, my favorite French bakery from Paris that also has a location in London (but nothing in the U.S.). We eventually found it in a lovely neighborhood and bought a few slices of bread and some scones. Then we took a cab back to the hotel.
Shir also returned to the hotel with her family, giving us the opportunity to meet her parents and sister. Shir and her (older) sister are basically twins—it was really nice, and I’m looking forward to visiting their farm and riding a tractor when we go to Israel in April.
We changed and headed out to dinner at 5:30 p.m. at The Ivy. The restaurant was beautiful, and we had a lovely corner table. I think it’s a famous old restaurant that’s been there for over 100 years. Our waiter was fabulous (which he also told us), but the service was… chaotic. Drinks never came, and the food took forever. We needed to be at the theater ten minutes away for a 7:30 show. By 6:20, we still hadn’t received our food. Eventually, they brought appetizers and food all at once. Tzvi and Inbar shared a cheese souffle, which looked gross to me but they said was good, and we all shared a basket of fried zucchini. I had a vegetable curry and Tzvi had a vegetable risotto. The food itself was actually very good, but we couldn’t get dessert because we had to leave. The waiter apologized, saying they were chaotic that night. Oh well.
On the way to the theater, we passed a Marc Jacobs perfume pop-up and grabbed some samples. I mention that only because Madeleine proceeded to spray the sample on everything – herself, her dolls, her shoes. The scent is still with us.
We finally arrived at the Drury Lane Theater to see Hercules: The Musical, which I had been excited about ever since seeing the Hercules musical on the Disney Magic Cruise in 2000. This version opened just a few months ago, and I would be lying if I said it wasn’t part of the reason we chose to have our holiday in London. Inside, I bought a tote bag and we took our seats. The girls did really well—Madeleine was a little antsy, but overall fantastic. The show was fun; you just have to disconnect it from the movie version because it’s so completely different, but it was very well done.
Afterward, we walked back to the hotel—about 10 minutes—Madeleine was on Tzvi’s shoulders but Hallie complained the entire way. Back at the hotel, we got the kids to sleep and packed up, while Tzvi took another work call. Then Tzvi and I went to the lobby bar, Scarfes, which is named after a cartoonist and is ranked one of the top 50 bars in the world. We got seats at the bar and each ordered a cocktail. There was live music, and we stayed for about 30–40 minutes until they stopped serving at midnight. Our bartender was Italian and told us he had recently visited New York. He was naming all of the bars he went to. He also told us how they get a limited number of free nights to use at other Rosewoods. Maybe I should work for Rosewood. Very interesting and a nice end to the day.
Tomorrow we check out and move on to the next leg of our trip!
England. Days 2 and 3. What's The Story Morning Glory.
We had a few wake ups overnight.
I gave the kids melatonin though, and everyone did OK, all things considered. We hadn’t scheduled anything for Friday because we knew we’d never be able to get anywhere at a specific time. The only thing we knew was that breakfast closed at 11. We got up by 9:45 and headed to breakfast in the Holborn Dining Room, the main restaurant at the hotel. We walked through the gorgeous courtyard to get to the dining room, and I was right, in the light it’s even nicer. The dining room is very nice too. For breakfast we had an option of either taking a pre-set package or a la carte but you were allotted up to 32 pounds each. Today we opted for the Traditional English Breakfast – coffee, juice, eggs, tomatoes, baked beans, veggie sausage, avocado toast, waffles, and more.
After breakfast we headed back to the room before starting on our day of shopping. Somehow Madeleine had got it in her head that we were spending the day going to a lot of toy stores. Probably because Tzvi had told her we were going to a lot of toy stores. (Feel free to message us for parenting tips.) Anyway, I decided to try to do my hair before we went out. I should mention that a couple of weeks ago I called the hotel and asked if they had a voltage converter for my Dyson Airstrait. This tool is hefty, and makes the lights flicker at home so I didn’t want to burn down any hotels. They told me they would have a transformer in my room when we got there. Well, if I tell you it looked a bit like an amp at a concert I wouldn’t be lying. The only problem is I couldn’t figure out how to work it and ended up blowing the fuse in the hotel room. Serves me right for trying to bring a Dyson on vacation.
We got a black cab from the front of the hotel. These black cabs are great. They are so spacious and clean and there is even enough space for 6 people in a smaller car. I’m not sure why they can’t figure this out in NY and we have to be stuck with ugly yellow taxis. Our first stop was Leicester Square, which basically felt like Times Square. We first hit the Lego store and then the M & M store. When we were done with the M&M store Inbar met us! For those of you who don’t recall, Inbar, our au pair from two years ago, is studying in London for 3 years.
We walked through China Town, picked Hallie up a bagel with cream cheese because she was “starving,” and continued walking. We hit Picadilly Circus where we found the Hasbro store. They had this display of old toys, including a Bop-It Extreme that I used to have. I showed Hallie and she was so jealous, as she should be, because it was way better than the Bop-It they have now. We then made our way to the original Charles Thrywit store which was underwhelming and actually more expensive that in America. [Tzvi: I thought it would be like a big deal – I mean, every store you visit in America the sign actually says “Charles Thyrwhit, Jermyn Street, London” and here we were on Jermyn Street, and it was basically the same as the store at Roosevelt Field Mall.] We stopped at Waterstones flagship store, a bookstore, where the girls and Tzvi got books. Apparently the tote bags are famous here, but I didn’t buy one.
We kept walking down Regent Street, which is all expensive shopping and the same stores we have in New York. It felt like we walked from Times Square to Fifth Ave. For lunch we originally had planned to go to Dishoom at 130pm, but we were too full from breakfast so we cancelled that reservation. By 3pm we were starving though, so we found this poke bowl place that was pretty decent. I had a good tofu bowl.
Then we walked to Hamleys, the biggest Toy Store (in the world?), which was five floors and huge. They had a large collection of Barbies and Rainbow High Dolls. Madeleine got a Rainbow High Doll and Hallie got some weird ball and some doll. We kept walking and Shir and I went shopping at Stradivarius, which a Spanish brand that we don’t have in America, and one of my favorites that I usually shop at in Israel (there is one in Mamilla Mall). Then we hit Selfridges where we walked around and got a coffee in the food hall, and Hallie got a baguette. We went upstairs to the Jellycat Flagship area. You can book a Jellycat appointment there at the Jellycat diner where they cook you up Jellycat fish and chips. I didn’t realize you could book it, but the kids didn’t need to do that anyway. They each bought Jellycats. Madeleine got a pizza, and guess what, Hallie got a baguette.
We went back to the hotel and dropped our stuff, then went straight back out and walked to dinner. Given Shabbos was starting soon we opted to eat somewhere in the neighborhood, only about ten minutes away, so we could walk back. Dinner was at Faros, a small Italian restaurant. It was very nice but had no air. It wasn’t hot, but it was just so stuffy. I don’t know how people function like this. The food was good but the kids were losing it. We shared a Pornstar Martini, which was nice, Hallie had pizza, Tzvi had a creamy truffle pasta and I had pasta with tomato sauce.
We walked back to the hotel as Shabbat was starting. We said goodbye to Inbar for the night and went back to our room.
Good day!
Day 3
(Note: a number of the photos in this day were pulled from the internet or were taken after Shabbat.)
This morning we got up, went to breakfast—same deal as yesterday. I don’t know if there’s much worth mentioning except that I got the açaí bowl, which was fun, and a green smoothie that was weird but fine. We found out that the host was actually from Pico in Los Angeles, and had moved to London about 7 years ago. Small world. We also grabbed some newspapers, which turned out to be very conservative—probably appealing to the crowd that stays at this hotel.
After breakfast, we dropped our stuff and started our walk to the British Museum. It was about a 10–15 minute walk. We met Inbar outside and headed in. Tickets are free, but you have to book them online. The museum is beautiful and looks like a palace. Originally it had a huge courtyard in the middle of the building that housed a massive round domed-roof library. In the ‘90s they enclosed the courtyard with a modern roof. The effect is really incredible – it’s bright and mixes the two hundred year old building with the more modern buildings. Apparently the library is where a lot of famous authors used to come to write, but it’s no longer a working library. I was explaining to the girls that this was before the internet—you couldn’t just search for a book. If you wanted one, you had to ask the library staff, and it might take them an hour to find it. You couldn’t even take it home; you had to read it there and return it. Madeleine was shocked: “You couldn’t take the book?!”
We wandered through some exhibits—saw the Rosetta Stone [Tzvi: who knew it was more than an app??], some Egyptian pieces, and plenty of naked statues of men, which the girls found hilarious. The coolest part was an interactive section where you could actually touch things. We held a hand axe made of rock that was 350,000 years old. Then we touched a piece of stone with cuneiform on it, and even a little makeup pot from Egypt, about 4,000 years old, that had been used for eyeliner. Very cool.
There was also a section on mythical creatures, which the girls didn’t love. What I found fascinating was an art installation called Cradle to Grave. It was a long display of pills arranged in a net to represent the life cycle of a person. At the start, you see things like newborn vaccines and a vitamin K shot; then more and more medications as the timeline continues. The plaque said the average person will take 35,000 pills in their lifetime. Wild.
The kids did well, but eventually started to lose it, so we left. On the walk back we stopped at a park for a little while, but didn’t stay long since Madeleine had to pee.
Back at the hotel, we hung out until it was time for our 2:30 afternoon tea in the Mirror Room—another very beautiful room at the hotel. It’s called the “Art Tea,” inspired by Asian art. We started with savory bites. For the kids: cream cheese and egg salad sandwiches. Madeleine actually ate one of the cream cheese; Hallie tried and hated it. For the adults, they served a tofu tart (which I loved and ended up needing to order four more for Madeleine), smoked salmon, a mushroom spoon (basically a Chinese soup spoon with soy marinated shimeji mushrooms), an eggplant sandwich that tasted like pulled BBQ beef, and a fancy Japanese egg salad sandwich. Not much for me to eat other than the tofu, but I could still appreciate these were very good sandwiches. Tzvi loved them. Next came the scones: plain and raisin, served with cream, lemon curd, and jam. Absolutely superb. Alongside that was a matcha cheesecake encased in dark chocolate—I didn’t eat the matcha cheesecake part, but I ate the shell and it was great.
Then dessert: first, a gorgeous creation that was basically the famous painting of The Great Wave painted onto a piece of fondant and then rolled into a tube. Inside was cake, strawberries, vanilla cream, and tapioca pearls. Delicious and beautiful—an A+. There was also a chocolate mousse bomb with pistachio, caramel, and an almond crust, plus a cherry cake. All phenomenal—perfectly executed, gorgeous desserts. We stayed nearly two hours and could have lingered longer, but we had massages booked.
At 4:30 we left the girls with Inbar and Shir and checked into the spa. We’d opted for separate massages (the couples massage was like an extra 40 pounds, which is where Tzvi is drawing the line for this vacation). The massages were good—mine was ok, relaxing, but Tzvi thought his massage was fantastic. The spa itself was limited: just a sauna, no steam room or whirlpool. Still, a nice little experience.
Afterwards, Tzvi took the girls to walk Inbar to her bus stop, then strolled a bit before heading back. They found a park and walked through it but there was no playground. Then Tzvi stopped at the front desk and asked them to send up pizza and fries for Madeleine, which made her very happy. He took Hallie down to the restaurant for a piece of fish since she hasn’t been eating protein – it’s basically just been bread for every single meal. They had a nice meal time, except the fish came, Hallie took one bite and then said she hated it. Luckily they brought ketchup and fries and after dousing the fish in ketchup she actually enjoyed it.
By 8:50, Shabbat was over, and Tzvi and I got ready to go out. Tonight’s dinner was at The Dover, a 1970s New York–themed restaurant. Yes—we came to London and went to a New York–themed place. But it was great. We got a fantastic corner booth, which almost never happens at these fancy spots.
When we sat down, Tzvi noticed a table of two older men sitting across from us in the opposite corner. He handed me his phone and had pulled up a Wikipedia page of Stephen Fry (actually, Sir Stephen Fry, because he’s a knight) – a famous older British comedy actor who used to do a comedy series with Hugh Laurie (before he was Dr. House), and said, “do you think this guy is sitting at that table?” I was pretty sure it was the same person, but it was confirmed when the people at the table next to him told him what fans they were and then asked to take a picture. There’s our celebrity sighting for the trip.
Next to us, a table of three religious Muslim women sat down, and I had two observations. First, they can’t drink wine, but they can eat shrimp, which is like the garbage of the sea. I don’t really understand that. Second, one of them took a bite of a potato-and-caviar dish and then clearly hated it, but then she proceeded to pull over her friend’s plate so she could take pictures of it for Instagram. Just funny.
Anyway, dinner was very good. I started with a fruity martini that was amazing, and Tzvi had a more basic martini. For food, we shared fried zucchini and sweet potato that came in a tower like very thick matchsticks, minestrone soup, and a salad with beets and barley and pomegranate seeds. Then came the mains: Tzvi had a dish that was basically a cross between an eggplant parmesan and a lasagna (which he absolutely loved), and I had salmon (which was just okay). For dessert, we hesitated but finally ordered the salted caramel ice cream with brownie pieces, which turned out to be delicious—a perfect way to end the meal.
We finished dinner, headed back to the hotel, and called it a day. A really good day.
England. Day 1. The Summer I Turned Positive.
And so we begin our end of summer trip to England. Except, as usual, there is a beginning before the beginning, because why should anything go smoothly?
Our flight was scheduled for Thursday, August 21st. By the previous Sunday I hadn’t been feeling well for a few days. I felt like garbage but I thought it was my normal cold—the kind that inevitably turns into a sinus infection, which means antibiotics. But that usually takes about a week, and that wouldn’t have been good because we’d already be in London by the time it went full-blown.
So, I speak to my doctor. He says, “Yeah, sure, I’ll write you the prescription, but first just take a COVID test, because I’m seeing a lot of COVID cases.” I go to CVS, buy a COVID test, and take it—flippantly, not flippantly… I’m not even sure what the right word is—but with fully confident it wouldn’t be positive. Well, guess what? There was a faint line that grew pinker by the minute.
So apparently I had COVID. That explained why I felt so horrible, except by that point it was already Day 5, so there wasn’t much to do. It just explained why I felt like crap.
Meanwhile, Monday night rolls around and Madeleine says her head hurts. What do you know? She has a fever. Of course, I’m freaking out, thinking: Great, she has COVID. So, I take her to urgent care where they do a strep test and a COVID test. Both come back negative. But she’s also saying her stomach hurts, her throat hurts… and I’m thinking, okay, this could be strep (because those are the symptoms), but it could also be COVID.
The next morning I decide to take her to the pediatrician—because I really need to know if there’s actually something there. They do another strep test and, lo and behold, it’s positive. So, Madeleine has strep. She ended up missing the last two days of camp, which was very depressing, but she starts her meds.
Now it’s Wednesday night, the evening before we’re set to fly. We’re trying to get ready, we’re packing, doing the whole thing. I’m still feeling a little crappy, getting over COVID. Madeleine is sick with strep—bad strep, the kind that doesn’t just go away in twelve hours. Tzvi decides this is the right time to announce that he has a 99.1 temperature and a headache.
I’m like: What do you mean? Take a COVID test.
He takes one. We can’t really tell. And I’m so upset—I mean, I’m going to need him to write this part because I don’t even know how to describe how upset I was.
[Tzvi: she was very upset.]
He says he’d had a headache all day but thought it was just because he wasn’t sleeping. And I’m like: If you know there’s someone in the house with COVID, why would you wait until the end of the day? This is the man who walks around saying he has an “elevated temperature” when his temp is 98.7 instead of 98.6. So yeah, I lost it. I was losing it.
He went to urgent care, where he took another COVID test and a strep test—both negative. But honestly? I didn’t believe it. I was convinced he probably had COVID and was about to ruin the whole vacation. I pictured myself in London with the kids, and him just lying there, doing nothing. Even though I powered through my COVID, he’d just be useless.
And I was just… so upset.
Day 1
Somehow, I managed to get to sleep Wednesday night—despite wanting to kill myself—and then we woke up bright and early Thursday morning at six. Our flight was at 8:45. Everyone seemed to be okay.
I should probably give the introduction I would’ve given to this strip if I didn’t need to write a whole page about Covid and Strep. We’re off to jolly old England to spend five nights in London and three nights in the English countryside. Several months ago we were trying to figure out what to do for summer vacation. We considered Mexico and different islands, but ultimately we knew the kids wouldn’t be able to handle sitting on a beach all day. We also didn’t want to do a full-on city vacation because we knew we wouldn’t be able to handle a full week of walking around a city and seeing sights with our kids. I happened to be chatting with Mary Helen Law, a travel agent who we’ve used to book Disney travel in the past and who also has a luxury travel agency, and she suggested splitting up the trip with a city portion and a more relaxing portion. Her suggestion: London and the English countryside. We had considered London in the past, but I had no idea going to the English countryside was a thing. Apparently it is, and she recommended a hotel in the country that looked so amazing we ended up building an entire trip around it. But we’ll get to that in a few days. All I’ll say for now is that she hit it out of the park with her recommendations and helped plan a great trip.
So, Thursday morning, we got ourselves together, our car came at 6:45, and we were driving away by 6:53. I reminded the girls that this may seem early, but in a month and a half we’ll be heading to Los Angeles and have to be out even earlier. They didn’t appreciate that. Anyway, we did the trek to JFK. We had a very good driver who saved us some time cutting a massive line of traffic at the airport, and then we headed to check in at the Mosaic desk, which was very smooth. We went through security with no problem. It was very crowded—actually, I thought it was extremely crowded for a Thursday morning—but we got through without issue. After that, I went to get Hallie a bagel, which took something like 20 minutes, while Tzvi went to pick up the coffees we had ordered at Starbucks (which, of course, didn’t go smoothly). By then, boarding had already started. We got on line, ready to board. They began scanning our passports, and suddenly, they stop us.
“Oh, Kaplan—we called you before. You need a visa for her. For Shir.” We’re like, “huh?”. They look at her passport and say, “She needs a special visa to get to the UK.”
We’re like: What do you mean? We filled out the electronic travel visa. What are you talking about?
“Oh, she’s from Israel. She needs a special visa.”
So, we have to move off the line. People are filling the plane, and I’m panicking, thinking Shir’s going to have to get off and won’t be able to come to London.
Tzvi was surprisingly calm. He just said, “No, they’re wrong, I’m right. You just have to give them a minute to figure it out.” Very unlike him.
Sure enough, after a few minutes, the agent finally says, “Yeah, all right, it’s fine. Go ahead.” She just didn’t know what she was talking about. (Or she just hates Jews.)
The flight itself was actually very nice. The captain came on the PA and gave us details: we’d push back, taxi for 20–25 minutes, and then take off. Flying time would be six and a half hours. I appreciated that—especially after our last horrible flights, where we just sat on the runway with no updates. And he was accurate: we taxied for about 25–27 minutes, just like he said.
We were served one meal: breakfast. We had pre-ordered kosher but obviously they didn’t have it. The options were an egg salad croissant or a yogurt, plus a muffin-type thing and some fruit. Honestly, it was strange timing. We pushed back at 8:45, took off around 9:15–9:20, and then about an hour later they served breakfast. But you still had six hours of flying left. Why not just serve lunch later? It makes no sense—it feels too late in the morning for breakfast.
Anyway, around noon or 12:30 I decided to eat my turkey sandwich that I’d packed. I took two bites, and suddenly they started handing out ice cream sandwiches. Sadly, I couldn’t have one, but still—it was a nice touch. Later, they gave out banana bread, which wasn’t horrible.
Overall, it was a really good flight. The girls did really well. They watched some Harry Potter and then mostly their iPads. Pretty uneventful—except Hallie kept peeing every ten minutes. (Okay, maybe an exaggeration, but it was a lot. Annoying.)
We landed in London at 8:45 p.m. local time. First stop: the bathroom. Hallie couldn’t get over how beautiful it was. And honestly, she was right—it was pristine, especially compared to JFK, which is disgusting.
Then we headed to passport control. There was one line for US and European passports, another line for all other passports, and a third line for families. First Shir went on the all other passports line, and then the four of us got on the family line, but then we realized we could’ve brought Shir on the family line so we pulled her off the other line and into our line. At that point a border agent saw her moving and asked “what is her relationship to you?”
Without thinking, Tzvi answered, “She’s our au pair.”
“Oh, so she’s your nanny? Does she have a visa?”
We explained that we’d filled out the electronic travel visa. The officer shook her head. “No, does she have a non-domestic work visa for the United Kingdom?”
We were dumbfounded. What are you talking about? Never in my life had I heard anything like this.
So for the second time I’m thinking they’re not going to let her in, they’re going to send her back, Tzvi’s going to end up sick with in bed with COVID (even though he was feeling fine) and I’ll be out touring trying to wrangle two kids on my own.
The officer brought us to another woman who was behind a desk and actually checking passports. She was older and much nicer, and she basically gave us a look and said something like: “So, she’s here on holiday, right?” We just nodded and said “right.” Then she basically told us, just don’t say she’s working. Evidently, when you bring a babysitter to Europe, they’re technically considered “working” in the country and need a visa. The whole thing seemed pretty ridiculous, but whatever, we got through.
By the time we got to baggage claim our luggage was already coming out. Putting aside the almost not all making it into the country, I was actually super impressed with the Heathrow. They really seemed to put an emphasis on families, which was a nice change from America. Usually when we land somewhere we need to wait a super long time to get the stroller at the gate, but here it came out almost immediately, and then they had the special line for families at passport control, which was much shorter. It partly made me realize that the fact that bags take a long time to come out at American airports probably isn’t really Jet Blue’s fault, it’s just the American airports.
Once we had all our bags we walked out into the arrivals hall where there were lots of people lining up to meet people. It was like the scene at the end of Love Actually. We were met by a taxi Mary Helen had pre-arranged—a big Mercedes van with two facing rows of seats. The kids got to face backwards, which they thought was a novelty.
The drive to our hotel, the Rosewood London in Holborne (a neighborhood of London) was about 50 minutes.
We pulled in, and it was beautiful. You drive into this gorgeous courtyard—even in the dark, when we could barely see, it was stunning. Inside, the lobby was just as gorgeous. Everything was dimly lit and atmospheric, so I’m sure it will look even more beautiful tomorrow in the daylight. And they had chocolate everywhere—little glass dishes filled with tiny chocolates scattered around. The kids were running from dish to dish collecting pieces.
We headed up to our connecting rooms, which were just as stunning as the lobby. The girls had twin beds that were separated, and they were so happy about not having to share a bed.
We unpacked a bit and ordered room service. I got this mushy vegetable dish from the kids’ menu that honestly looked like green vomit—but it actually tasted good. Tzvi and I also shared a veggie burger and Caesar salad. Hallie had fish goujons (which she didn’t like) and Madeleine had plain pasta (which she didn’t like), so basically the two kids just ate a lot of French fries. We also got a sticky toffee pudding and a chocolate brownie and doused both with caramel sauce. It was delicious.
Then we got the girls to bed. Madeleine fell asleep around 12:30, and Hallie by about 1:30. Very late, but not terrible, considering we were five hours ahead.
Finally, I took a bath to relax.
And that was it for Day 1.
Miami 2025. Days 4 and 5. Beaches and (ice) Cream.
We woke up with hopes to go to breakfast, but that didn’t happen.
I bought cheerios yesterday so the kids had a little. We met everyone in the lobby at 10:45 and walked to shul where there was a kiddush. We couldn’t decide if we wanted to be meat or not because we didn’t know the days’ food situation. It ended up that the cholent was vegetarian which as great! Tzvi mixed the cholent with tuna salad, which he used to do as a kid. He liked it, but everyone thought it was disgusting. They also had Caesar salad but they keep putting olives in it and I don’t understand that. We obviously stayed at shul for a while, before walking home and getting ready for the beach.
Once again as we arrive we find out someone checked in under our name again! At this point I was pissed and nervous that someone would be charging things under our name. I went to the front desk and asked for a manager. I told him about this and then I also mentioned that the overnight manager was horrible (but I didn’t say that exactly). He was nice.
We spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach and pool. It was so nice because the kids all hung out with each other and kept each other entertained. It also wasn’t as hot as yesterday. All around a great afternoon. About an hour before Havdala we went next door to Hindel and Mendy’s room for a seudat shlishit and then maariv.
By the time Shabbos ended it was late, around 9:15/9:30 and we all wanted to go eat. Well, the only place we could find open was Mozart Café! Once again, it was sub par! It was like 15 of us, spread over several tables (including one table where Hattie sat alone, although that was probably to get some rest from our kids), and when we ordered the waitress told us to order separately and she would give us each a separate check. Well, surprise, surprise, they put everything on a single bill. So we each had to go through the bill and tell them what we ordered to figure out how to pay for it. Anyway, the meal was ok. It's one of those kosher places that reminds me of Babu Bat’s American Dream Café from Seinfeld – no real direction and you can get both felafel and ravioli, which is actually what Neal ordered. Probably better than yesterday, but still just ok.
The kids were exhausted, but it was 11:30 and I had wanted ice cream for the last two days, so we Ubered to Anita Gelato for a midnight ice cream run. It’s actually still kosher here and it is delicious. The kids were running on fumes but everyone enjoyed their ice cream. We ubered back to the hotel and ended up with a party van – flashing colorful lights on the ceileing. When we got back we watched the non-stop news of the US bombing Iran, and then went to bed, once again around 1am.
Sunday
Today we got up and it was pouring! We really got lucky with weather this trip because if there was a day to rain, this was it. Hallie was hungry so she got a bagel and sat in the breakfast area with the Feits. We packed up and moved our bags to Mendy’s room, because he is staying another night. Then he got his car and drove us to the mall in the pouring rain.
Today we brunched at Motek, the Israeli place at Aventura Mall that Hallie and I ate at when we went to Taylor Swift. It’s not kosher, but there’s a big sign outside that says “Kosher style.” Once again it was delicious. We shared everything – crispy cauliflower with harissa honey glaze, crispy artichokes, French toast, zucchini latkes, shakshuka with humus, Jerusalem bagel and malawach.
After lunch we said goodbye to Mendy and walked around the mall. The girls got chocolate strawberries and a bunch of things from Abercrombie, and then we Ubered back to the hotel, collected our stuff, used Mendy’s bathroom and left to the airport.
Check in and security were great and all was well, until we got to the gate when they announced a 2 hour delay! The PTSD hit hard. Instead of a 4:55 flight it was now 6:45. They told us it was because of too much air traffic. I have nothing to say. We waited and waited. Thankfully we did board, but were delayed a bit more, once again due to air traffic. We finally took off maybe around 7:30. Painful.
The flight was fine. We landed at JFK, had to wait forever for our bags (but at least they came our early when they did start coming), and took a car home.
Exhausting trip. Great Trip!
